Billion Dollar Fraud Goes Viral

Billion Dollar Fraud Goes Viral

September 8, 2026 · 38 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the massive pyramid scheme involving TelexFree that defrauded nearly a million people out of $1.7 billion.

Promising enormous returns on a "work from home" opportunity selling their TelexFree phone service, Carlos Wanzeler and James Merrill entice close to one million people around the world to spend, and then lose an extraordinary $1.7 billion in the largest pyramid scheme ever prosecuted in the US. (Original television broadcast: 06-25-2018) Want to binge watch your Greed? The latest episodes at: https://www.cnbc.com/american-greed/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Host: CNBC

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: TelexFree

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